Miami Vice: Michael Mann Updates TV Classic

With few of the character subtleties of his prior hit Collateral, Michael Mann updates and boosts the adrenalin level a notch in a feature version of his 1980's TV series. Vice detectives Crockett and Tubbs never had it so dangerously full of big action and ruthless deception. And, what we learn in the first drug deal is that the man who controls the sharpshooters holds the trump card.

This bit of brutality goes down after a mostly unintelligible nightclub scene aimed at proving that Mann can generate enough loud music and noise to drown out dialogue. Also that Det. James "Sonny" Crockett (Colin Farrell) has an eye for a beautiful woman even when on a case, and that he and his team's next assignment will be to go undercover to find out who botched an FBI operation that caused the death of a key informant. Someone's been leaking intel to a drug organization with a long reach.

Sonny, his partner Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) and immediate support team that includes cool agent babes who can wield high-powered machine guns with the best of them (Naomie Harris, Elizabeth Rodriguez) are all business in a completely unrelaxed way as they plot a penetration into the seat of power in the Colombian cartel. To pull it off, their bios become rap sheets on all agency computers.

With their true jobs completely obscured, they win entry into the first zone of operational security, a deeply secreted house guarded by a phalanx of cutthroat guards that would put a mafioso hideout to shame. But the cartel has to be asking itself, what do we need a couple of gringos for? What can they do better than we are already doing? Which is exactly what 2nd in command Jose Yero (John Ortiz) is asking when he interviews the two men to determine trustworthiness and advantage.